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Monday, June 18, 2012

In the wake of the death of Commissioner Rick Eagan, the Brown County Republican Party had to name a successor and candidate for a special election in November to fill the remainder of the seat, as Rick had not quite served half of his term. On June 7th, the county GOP met to discuss and appoint the successor to a great commissioner. There were several qualified candidates, three of whom had run and/or served as county commissioner in the past. However, the party decided to go for the future and name Tony Applegate to succeed Rick Eagan and run in the special election in the fall. Meanwhile, the county Democrats, who supposedly had a great deal of interest, as predicted and to no one's surprise, elected stale yesterday's news candidate Margery Paeltz, former commissioner and frequent taker of trips on the taxpayer dime to run yet again for yet another office. First, the story on the GOP from a newspaper whose publisher does not have an as yet undisclosed conflict of interest in covering political stories (like Steve Triplett at the News Democrat does), the Brown County Press:

Tony Applegate will be the newest Brown County Commissioner.

Applegate was elected by the Brown County Republican Central Committee on June 7 to replace the late Rick Eagan on the commission.

"I'm pleased to be elected and I hope to do a good job".

"We all want to see more development in the county, more commerce and more good paying jobs. Those are some of the things I'm going to be concentrating on."

Applegate also said that drug abuse and addiction were a major issue in Brown County and that he would do what he could to work on that problem.

Applegate has served on the Georgetown Village Council for 14 years and he said that his experience there should help him in the commissioners office.

"I think that experience will be helpful. It's a municipality, but some of the same issues are facing the county, just on a larger scale."

Applegate was elected following a three hour session of the GOP Central Committee.

He and fellow candidates Chris Renshaw, Dale Reynolds, Jack Crout and Gary Steele were interviewed individually and the committee began debating the issue after hearing from all five men.

With 24 central committee members voting, 13 votes were needed to secure the appointment.

Steele was eliminated after the first ballot, and Crout and Reynolds were eliminated after the second ballot.

Applegate was declared the winner after going up against Renshaw on the third ballot.

Applegate will serve until January of 2013 and will presumably be the GOP nominee in November to complete the last two years of Eagan's term.

In addition to his role on town council, Mr. Applegate is an entrepeneur, a venture capitalist. He has started and owned several businesses in the area, including video stores, restaurants, office supply stores, and hardware stores. He has never had a business under his ownership fail. He has provided numerous jobs to the county, increasing revenues. This experience, especially knowing who to call to get private interest in the county and such, will be crucial to getting more businesses to come to Brown County.

Meanwhile, the county Democrats pulled another aged, used up, dried up old prune from the vine to run for Commission, former and defeated commissioner and many time failed office seeker Margery Paeltz. She was annointed ahead of two other Democrats, one of whom was defeated in the primary for another seat on the commission. Margery loved her time as commissioner. She got to go lots of times to Columbus and other places on the taxpayer dime. But, I guess Democrats think people love that stuff. Of course, when there are only about ten people in the room, and three of them are there to be chosen, it is tough to find new and fresh candidates; better to get stuck with an old rotten one than none at all, I suppose. Ms. Paeltz is also known for sending family members to county GOP meetings to find out if and how much money her opponent has and if the county party is helping out, as well as finding intel for the democrat central committee. So, you can see, playing dirty is old hat to her.

Margery was hoping we would name someone who didn't have the resources or experience to run a shortened campaign, while she would just go in her barn and get out her tired purple campaign signs. She could even use some from previous office campaigns she failed in, just changing the office title to commissioner. But, the county GOP central committee picked Mr. Applegate, who has the resources and ground game to effectively challenge Paeltz.

The people of Brown County face clear choices in the fall when it comes to county commission--new fresh faces toward the future, or tired, failed, beaten faces looking to the past who like to travel on taxpayer dimes.

Motto:

Every cloud has a silver lining (except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium & Strontium 90).

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